


Three Strikes

by Lexebug



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Brain Damage, Deaf Character, Muteness, Panic, Panic Attacks, Partial Mind Control, Psionics, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-14
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2019-02-02 09:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12724149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexebug/pseuds/Lexebug
Summary: It only took one night for everything to fall apart.





	Three Strikes

**Author's Note:**

> This story has semi-graphic descriptions of blood/gore! Please skip that if it's stressful!

The first time Kurloz used his chucklevoodoos on Mituna, with Mituna’s permission, it felt insidious. Slick and slithering and oily, like an invader was squirming into his brain, joining in the chorus of whispers and laughing at him, and Mituna cried, begging for him to get it out. Kurloz relinquished, apologizing profusely, asking what he did wrong. Mituna slowly relaxed against him, and, when he was ready, gave him the signal to try again. It was different, the second time. It slid into his brain like a cat, gentle, asking permission before it put its paws down. It smoothed the edges of the anxiety, delicately balanced out the background noise with the comforting murmurs of Kurloz’s voice, like he was whispering directly into Tuna’s subconscious. 

When Mituna got too anxious, when he was fidgeting and sparking and breathing too hard, too quickly, like his chest would explode, when the visions of the end threatened to overwhelm him, Kurloz would pull him close and crawl into his brain just enough to calm him down. Let him know it was okay. Smooth hands through his hair and across his horns until he relaxed into the deft fingers, and his breathing returned to normal, and they sat there while Kurloz pulled back his powers and whispered calming phrases into his ears. 

After you give someone the trust of your whole mind and heart, there’s another connection there. Something more. As Kurloz slowly started using his chucklevoodoos more, Mituna realized that he could feel traces of them, even when he wasn’t being controlled. It was like another one of the voices in his head, but this was different. More pronounced. Everything else in his brain was italicized, and Kurloz’s voice was in bold indigo. It wasn’t a problem, per sey; it reminded Mituna on his low days that there was someone still there, still caring for him. 

But when Mituna woke up screaming, he knew something had gone wrong. The tingling sense of impending death had returned, stronger than ever, and his heart was racing with terror. The voices in his mind were all yelling, different things at the same time, and loudest of all was the bold indigo screeching about the mirthful messiahs, about redemption, about sin and death and punishment. Mituna didn’t know what any of it meant; it was too loud, too much at once, to decipher any of the individual messages. His eyes were flashing with colors, blue and red and indigo, like blood splatters across the insides of his eyelids, and the next color that showed up was a bright fuschia. Meenah. Meenah was going to do something, and it was going to fuck shit up monumentally, and he had to stop her, it was his job, he had to GO

And then Mituna was racing down the street, finger sparking, Jacob’s ladders of electricity crackling between his horns. The voices were screeching now, foretelling doom, explosions, the demise of all his friends. Through it all, the indigo letters were spelling out messages about the gods, the messiahs, the sacrifices we need to make. The other voices, for the first time Mituna could remember, stopped. And then his brain was hit with the most powerful wave of psychic energy he’d ever felt. 

He collapsed onto his knees in the road, hands on his ears, to stop the screaming, to stop the cursed noise. Indigo and green were flashing in front of his vision like strobe lights, and the purple screams weren’t stopping, they kept going, but he had to move, had to go, had to stop Meenah from doing whatever it was she was going to do, but he couldn’t make his legs move. The sound was pressing down on him, around him, pressing him in, keeping him rooted to the ground with his arms around his chest and tears streaming down his face.

Mituna forced his head up, trying to block out the noise; the other voices had returned, panicked, telling him convoluted instructions, or crying, or screaming with the indigo. Slowly, he pressed out, one limb at a time; when he couldn’t make his legs move, he gritted his teeth and sparked himself to life, lighting up his senses with electricity. The static crackled along his legs as he slowly, slowly, too slowly oh gog he was too late rose to his feet and started down the street, each step a force of pure will. 

The screaming got louder, and in it, joined loud, olive sobbing. Mituna froze, felt his legs crumpling beneath him, and sobbed. Channeling the rest of his energy into his hands, he let himself fall, dragging himself along the ground, one agonizing finger at a time. His head was pounding, his mind was full of screaming and crying and fear and fear and fear, and he could feel his psiionics, stronger than ever, crackling through his mind and his ears and his head. It rolled over his horns, reaching the peaks, and striking down his spine, furrowing out to his ribs and his lungs and his entire body, until finally, the screaming stopped. It tapered off until there was quiet, purple weeping in the back of his brain. And Mituna, with the voices quieting in his brain, with his mind reeling and his hands sparkling, let it all fade to black.

When Mituna woke up, he felt. Something. Something was wrong, but he didn’t know what. Someone was holding him, cradling him, and he ran his shaking hands gently over the red sweater cuff, feeling like he should recognize this, remember this. Through the fog in his mind, a single thing reached through. One coherent, purple word. Mituna. He bolted upright, clutching at the sweater, feeling arms pull against him.

“Where’s Kurloz? I have to find him, where is he?” Someone was looking at him- Kankri, that was it, the owner of the red sweater, and were they still in the road? “Kankri, where is he, where’s Kurloz, I could hear him, he was screaming, I need to find him, let me go-” Mituna was struggling, clawing against Kankri’s arms, legs flailing, half-controlled, manic. Kankri held him tighter, pulled him to his chest, rocked him back and forth. Slowly, the tremors stopped, and Mituna whimpered, “Where is he, Kankri?”

Kankri sighed, eyes downcast. “Mituna,” he started, and broke off, voice cracking. “Kurloz had-some sort of bad dream, I don’t even know, and he screamed. And-” Was he crying? Were those tears on Kankri’s face? Mituna was having some sort of trouble seeing; his vision was tinted, red and blue. “Well, it was so loud, that it made Meulin go deaf. And Kurloz, um-” Kankri looked up, pleadingly, almost, at whoever was above him; Mituna hadn’t even noticed them. Whoever it was placed their hand, cold like a stone, on Mituna’s head, petting gently through his hair, and it felt wrong because that should be Kurloz’ hand, that should be Kurloz holding him, and where was his moirail. 

Kankri was shaking now, and all his sentences were broken off. When something stopped Kankri from preaching, there was something horrendously wrong. The cold hand grabbed Mituna’s and pulled him up, shushing him, leading him towards the edge of the neighborhood. The only thing out here was Meulin’s hive. Mituna realized, vaguely, that this might be Porrim guiding him, but he wasn’t sure. Mituna ducked inside the cave, and saw Meulin sitting next to Rufioh (was it Rufioh? Was his mind trying to trick him?), gauze wrapped over her ears. She smiled weakly at him, and her eyes were puffy, face stained with light green tear tracks. There was blood dried on the side of her head. 

Mituna knew that some corner of him was upset, somewhere, he felt bad for Meulin. Recognized that this was awful, that this was his friend, that she needed his support now. But the rest of him, clogged up with fear and adrenaline and static, wanted Kurloz, and wanted to know where Kurloz was, because he knew something was wrong, possibly-Porrim was hiding something from him, and he couldn’t trust anything except seeing his moirail, because nothing felt real or right and somewhere, deep in his mind, he heard the indigo voice again, weak, calling for him. He tugged his hand free, and without a word to anyone there, set off to find it.

He pushed through the fuzz in his brain, pushed through the lightning and energy going haywire in his mind, and tried to tune into the voice. It whispered to him, told him where he had to go. Told him to be careful. Told him to not be scared of what he would see. And he wasn’t, because it was Kurloz he was hearing.

Mituna shoved his way through the bushes and the undergrowth until he found a trail; a bright purple trail, in uneven intervals along the trampled-down foliage. He knew where he was going now. 

He finally emerged, scraped and sore and disoriented, into a small clearing with a lone figure huddled in the back. “Kurloz?” He called, his voice sounding distant, hollow. The troll looked up, and it was Kurloz, but there was something so wrong. Everything below his mouth was drenched in blood, the ground coated in it, the surrounding leaves. Mituna could just barely see purple-stained thread, probably black, lacing through Kurloz’s lips. In one hand, he held a needle, threaded with, yep, black thread. There were indigo tear tracks down his cheeks, and while this wasn’t the way Mituna’s Kurloz looked, the way he’d looked before, Mituna knew. This was him. He had to help him.

“Kurloz, c’mere, we gotta get you fixed up, shit, who knows medicine stuff-gog, Jegus fuck that’s a lot of blood, oh gog are you gonna die? Please don’t die on me, Kurloz, you can’t die, this isn’t allowed, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I couldn’t get here faster, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Kurloz wiped some of the blood off of his mouth with the back of his hand, and Mituna felt tears coming down his own face, and everything felt wrong and uclear and he hated it, wanted Kurloz back, wanted Kurloz’ voice to reach his ears, and Mituna crawled forward, curling himself into Kurloz’s bloodied chest. He felt damp, shivering hands come up to stroke through his hair, part around his horns, and Mituna tried to ignore the tears streaming down his face. The gods were whispering in his ears, and he knew then that they were gods. Kurloz’s voice was in his ear, in his head, shooshing him, soothing frayed nerves and panicked hearts. Mituna let himself fall into blackness again, let his mind go blank and wonderfully silent. Let Kurloz’s mental murmurs lull him into sleep. 

Mituna woke up in someone else’s recuperacoon, with Meulin and Kurloz looking at him, anxiously. Mituna paused, trying to gather his mind, the wayward thoughts floating around. Kurloz’s mouth had been cleaned up, and there were six neat black stitches criss-crossing his lips. It didn’t look as bad when it wasn’t covered in blood. His paint was smeared; why was his paint smeared? Kurloz took such good care of his paint. Meulin’s head was wrapped in bandages, gauze pads taped over her ears. Her eyes were puffy and wide, her nose dusted green, like she’d been crying. “Guys? What’s wrong?” Meulin shook her head, and Kurloz reached out and grabbed his hand. Swiftly, his finger shifted across Mituna’s palm, the way they’d taught each other to talk silently to one another, letters on his palm and pausing for spaces. I am mute, and Meulin is blind. You have hurt your brain. Mituna stared at him, feeling tears well in his eyes.”Kurloz? Kurloz, are we gonna be okay?” Kurloz nodded, and winced through a smile that probably hurt. Meulin nodded, but couldn’t even muster a smile. 

MItuna knew they were lying, but right now, he didn’t care. His diamond was here, and he needed him.


End file.
